Lenihan to have final say on Anglo Irish Bank records

FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan will make the final decision on whether state-owned Anglo Irish Bank can continue to withhold documents from the Director of Corporate Enforcement (DCE) by seeking to have them deemed legally privileged.

Yesterday, in the High Court Justice Peter Kelly said the assertion of legal professional privilege (LPP) by the bank’s management over certain electronic documents is “a considerable impediment” to the DCE Paul Appleby’s investigation. Judge Kelly urged the bank to look again at whether it should maintain that claim.

He added that he found it curious that Anglo, a wholly state-owned bank, should continue to assert LPP in an investigation being carried out by a state official into the affairs of the bank prior to it being nationalised.

The judge gave Anglo management two weeks to consider his request.

Shane Murphy SC, for Anglo, said he would convey the judge’s comments to his clients but said they were entitled to protect the bank’s “commercial interests”.

Last night a Department of Finance spokesman said that under the “framework” imposed on Anglo during its nationalisation and multi-billion recapitalisation, any decision to continue or waive LPP would have to go before Mr Lenihan for “consideration”.

Fine Gael justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan challenged Mr Lenihan to direct the Government-appointed Anglo Public Interest Directors, which include former Fine Gael leader and Anglo chairman designate Alan Dukes, to intervene to stop any further bid to “keep documents hidden from public view”.

The DCE was before the court via an application for orders relating to the handling of electronic material seized from the bank.

Mr Appleby was seeking to extend the period to examine that material by a further six months. because the material included privileged documents which, was proving impossible to separate from the other material without damaging it